5 Things You Didn't Know: Playboy

4- Playboy’s financial empire was built on clubs and casinos, not magazine nudes

There is no doubting the success of the magazine; the first issue sold out quickly, and the company was doing well enough in the following years to launch a short-lived television show. However, no other business venture brought the company the kind of exorbitant income the way its Playboy clubs and casinos did during the 1960s. For Playboy, they were an unprecedented revenue juggernaut.

Hefner’s format for the club was, in short, a copycat of Chicago’s Gaslight Club, which Playboy had featured in a 1959 issue; members owned “keys” that gave them exclusive access to the clubs, where attractive, scantily clad women served drinks. The feature was such a hit that Hefner and partner Victor Lownes decided to open their own based on the ”Playboy” lifestyle. Being a member was a status symbol; in fact, although membership fees were $50 for locals and $25 for out-of-towners, it is estimated that only a small percentage of those members ever even entered a club. By the end of 1961, 132,000 members passed through its doors, making it, at the time, the busiest nightclub in the world.

By the end of 1961, clubs had opened in New Orleans and Miami (ultimately about 40 would open worldwide), and in that first year alone those clubs garnered the company an astonishing $4.5 million in gross profits. The expansion into England, where the clubs were also casinos, earned Playboy more money than any other venture, before or since.

5- Playboy’s iconic logo was created in half an hour

All things considered, Playboy’s beginnings are extremely modest. The first issue was written almost entirely by Hefner in his Hyde Park, Chicago kitchen. Seeking a mascot of sorts, he envisioned a rabbit because of its “humorous sexual connotation” and its “frisky and playful” image. The tuxedo was added for sophistication.

Additionally, he choose a rabbit as a means of standing apart from Esquire and The New Yorker, which used men as symbols. According to Art Paul, Playboy’s first art director and the man who drew the logo, “If I had any idea how important that little rabbit was going to be, I probably would have redrawn him a dozen times to make certain I was doing him justice. … As it was, I did one drawing and that was it. I probably spent all of half an hour on it."